Santa Cruz County Biographies
PHILIP H. DEVOLL
Submitted by Kathy Sedler
This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm
Of all the inhabitants of Santa Cruz, Philip H. Devoll was probably the
first to come to the Pacific Coast. In 1830, when he first landed here, there
were no Americans living in Santa Cruz County. A few Spaniards and Mexicans
comprised the entire population, excepting the aborigines. Wonderful indeed are
the changes that have passed over this land since Mr. Devoll first saw it.
Mr. Devoll is a native of Westport, Massachusetts, and was born February
17, 1810. He received but scanty schooling, and left home in his tenth year, to
make his own living. He worked for a while at farm labor, to which he had been
born and bred, and then took to the sea. After several short voyages, he started
in his seventeenth year for a three-year whaling cruise in the Pacific Ocean, on
the ship Phoebe Ann, of New Bedford, Massachusetts; and during this trip he kept
a daily diary. He relates that at the beginning of the cruise he was supplied
with a small cask of rum and a box of tobacco as a part of his necessary
equipment, and that when the cruise was done he had not opened either package.
He was a total abstainer from both tobacco and liquor, and has always remained
so.
It was after this voyage was finished that Mr. Devoll came to
California, as second mate of the ship Hope, of New Bedford. He was then twenty
years old. On this voyage he visited Japan, the Sandwich Islands, Peru, the
Society Islands, and the Fayall, one of the Azore Islands, Bono Vest, one of the
Cape de Verd Isles and Island of Juan Fernandez. From these islands he went to
Monterey. There were very few white men in California at that time. He
remembered meeting the father of Mrs. Edward Williams, of Santa Cruz. He was
building a house and hauling the timbers by means of a pair of bullocks
harnessed in the style of that day, with a pole strapped to the roots of their
horns, and a strip of rawhide running from the middle of the pole to the timber.
There were no roads or carriages here in those days, not even a
wheelbarrow. Wild fowl and beasts came fearlessly within short distance of men,
for men were so scarce that the animals had not learned to fear them. Monterey
was, however, at that time the seat of government in California, and vessels
entering the harbor of Yerba Buena, or San Francisco; had their papers carried
on horseback to the Monterey custom house before they could do any business.
From Monterey Mr. Devoll went to Tres Maria Islands, off the coast of
Santa Barbara, where there were no human inhabitants, but abundance of wild
beasts, snakes, turtles, and seals. From Santa Barbara he returned to
Massachusetts, but took to the sea again next year. He was afterwards engaged in
farming in Massachusetts. In 1852 he married Lurana Brownell, of Westport, who
bore him eight children, of whom all but one are now dead. His wife also died,
and Mr. Devoll was again married, in 1849 to Betsey R. Ashley, a native of
Dartmouth, Massachusetts.
In 1868 Mr. Devoll, with his family, returned to California and made his
home in Santa Cruz. The vicissitudes of his early life had told upon his
powerful frame, and he had then been a cripple for six years, and has never yet
been able to rise to his feet. His mental faculties, however, still retain their
youthful vigor, and he engaged in business here, but has since retired, and now
lives on Walnut Avenue, Santa Cruz, with his wife and a granddaughter. Miss
Clara E. Devoll, born at Stockton.
Mr. Devoll is well informed upon the history of the Pacific Coast, and
the publisher of this work is indebted to him for considerable quantity of data.
HISTORY OF SANTA CRUZ COUNTY, CALIFORNIA.- E. S. Harrison,
Pacific Press Publ. Co., San Francisco, 1891